Berna Reale Biography

Reale became outstanding in the art scene beginning with her participation in the XXV Salão Arte Pará (2006), where she presented the intervention Cerne, consisting of photographs of human viscera taken in the morgue and strategically installed in the meat market of the Ver-o-Peso complex, a traditional center of markets and stands bustling with tourists and local shoppers in Belém. This experience led the artist to successfully take an exam to be a forensic expert, afterward working at the Renato Chaves Forensic Center in 2010. From then on, her production has been mainly focused on performance art as a form of denouncement of situations of social injustice, operating as a sort of questioning 'noise.' Reale’s performances, which are unfolded in photographic series and videos based on recordings of her actions, are also outstanding for presenting the artist as a protagonist, her own body entering as a further aesthetic element in the construction of the image.

Berna Reale was born in Belém do Pará/PA, Brazil, 1965, where she lives and works. She holds a degree in visual arts from the Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), Belém. Her recent solo and group shows include: Brazil. Knife in the Flesh, a group show at Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea Milano (PAC-Milano), Milan, Italy (2018), at which she presented Camuflagem (2018), her first performance held outside her birth city; Lecture/Performance & Screenings: Berna Reale, a solo show at Miami Dade College Museum of Art + Design (MDC MOAD), Miami/FL, USA (2017); Video Art in Latin America, a group show at LAXART, West Hollywood/LA, USA, part of the event II Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA (2017); and Vão, a solo show at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB), São Paulo/SP, Brazil (2017). She was one of the artists representing Brazil at the 56^th Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (2015), also participating in the 34^th Panorama da Arte Brasileira, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP), São Paulo/SP, Brazil (2015), in the 5^th Biennale internationale de la photographie et des arts visuels de Liège, Liège, Belgium (2006), and in the 13^th Bienal de Arte de Cerveira, Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal (2005). She has received the following awards: 5^th Prêmio Marcantonio Vilaça for Visual Arts, Brazil (2015); Prêmio PIPA Online 2012, Rio de Janeiro/RJ, Brazil (2012); and the Grand Prize of the Salão Arte Pará, Belém/PA, Brazil (2009). Her artworks figure in international collections such as those of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC USP), São Paulo/SP, Brazil; the Museu de Arte de Belém, Belém/PA, Brazil; and the Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR), Rio de Janeiro/RJ, Brazil.

Text courtesy Galeria Nara Roesler.